In the conventional cheese making process for producing cheddar, colby or stirred curd cheese, the curd and whey are transferred from the cheese making vat to a finishing vat where the curd is slowly agitated and the whey is drawn off. Subsequently, the cheddar-type curd is milled and the moist curd is agitated by forking paddles which travel the length of the vat on a reciprocating carriage. During the process, salt is sprinkled onto the curds in the finishing vat, and the salt serves to expel whey from the curds and to cure the cheese. In order to obtain uniform curing of the cheese, the salt should be precisely and uniformly applied to the curds. As the amount of salt to be used is very small in relation to the volume of the curds, difficulties arise in obtaining a uniform and controlled distribution of salt.
The normal procedure for salting, as used in the past, has been to apply the salt manually by splashing the salt by hand from a bucket onto the curds. This manual method produces a non-uniform application of salt in which certain portions of the curds are oversalted, while other portions may be undersalted.
Various devices have been suggested in the past for providing automatic salting. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,942,343 shows a device for salting cheese curds in which the cheese curds move along an inclined strainer and whey is drained from the curds and simultaneously salt from a container is applied to the moving layer of curds.
In the U.S. Pat. No. 466,048 the curds are located in a revolving, dish-shaped table and a salter is mounted above the table. A drive mechanism simultaneously rotates the working table and drives the salter to distribute salt over the curds.